Windows Storage Spaces vs Raid vs unRaid

[absolutepitch828]

Looking to reconfigure my personal file server machine.

Looking to run a 3 x 4TB file server. 1 drive for redundancy. 8TB usable storage.
usage will be mainly storage of media, bittorent maybe plex.

the question here is which storage config should i go for?
1)Windows Storage Spaces (server 2012)
2)Software Raid5
3)UnRaid

Messed around with windows storage space abit. fairly easy to use, portable between machines as long as runnning server2012. BT can be configured as a service easily. somewhat easy to upgrade although it has to be all drives e.g. 3x4TB to 3x6TB

Software Raid5. i mean im inclined to just use windows storage spaces since this raid5 is is gonna be on a server2012 machine anyway. Only question is performance on general usage. does it beat out storage spaces on a 3x4TB setup? doesn't seem as easy to upgrade.

unraid seems like a more professional solution and also frees up an additional sata slot for me. down side is configuration. gotta figure out how it all works and stuff.

 

[yusoffb01]

unraid makes it easier to add more drives

 

[franky]

Just get a NAS.

 

[Entry Level PC]

Looking to reconfigure my personal file server machine.

Looking to run a 3 x 4TB file server. 1 drive for redundancy. 8TB usable storage.
usage will be mainly storage of media, bittorent maybe plex.

the question here is which storage config should i go for?
1)Windows Storage Spaces (server 2012)
2)Software Raid5
3)UnRaid

Messed around with windows storage space abit. fairly easy to use, portable between machines as long as runnning server2012. BT can be configured as a service easily. somewhat easy to upgrade although it has to be all drives e.g. 3x4TB to 3x6TB

Software Raid5. i mean im inclined to just use windows storage spaces since this raid5 is is gonna be on a server2012 machine anyway. Only question is performance on general usage. does it beat out storage spaces on a 3x4TB setup? doesn't seem as easy to upgrade.

unraid seems like a more professional solution and also frees up an additional sata slot for me. down side is configuration. gotta figure out how it all works and stuff.

1)Windows Storage Spaces (server 2012)

I would suggest you use this since you already have server2012 machine available.

2)Software Raid5
3)UnRaid

Config and Portability and System Failure not very fun when using these.

 

[absolutepitch828]

unraid makes it easier to add more drives

how's performance?
it's strangely hard to find comparison benchmarks (if any at all).

 

[jtjt00]

how's performance?
it's strangely hard to find comparison benchmarks (if any at all).

Performance will based on:
1. cpu
2. memory
3. Lan (you need gigabyte from end to end to get 11xmb/s speed)

 

[absolutepitch828]

Performance will based on:
1. cpu
2. memory
3. Lan (you need gigabyte from end to end to get 11xmb/s speed)

running on an amd e350, 6gb ram.
anyone knows if can hit 50-100MB/s on write?

 

[jtjt00]

running on an amd e350, 6gb ram.
anyone knows if can hit 50-100MB/s on write?

What is your router/switch(if any) used?

 

[absolutepitch828]

What is your router/switch(if any) used?

some tp-link switch with an asus rt-ac86u.
i don't think the network is an issue. everything is connected at 1Gbps (gigabit).

The limited literature seems to suggest parity performance is rubbish.
mirroring (raid1) works great.
however these articles are quite old. still trying to find if the 2012 R2 update improved parity performance.

 

[yusoffb01]

parity performance will suck for writing, not reading. So not an issue